GWAR: Phallus in Wonderland

Though GWAR takes credit for the advent of human civilization, they only truly rose to popularity in the ‘90s. As such, they did some severely ‘90s things by appearing in talk shows, MTV videos, and the SEGA Genesis. This totally tubular decade was also a time of eXtreme censorship, making the band’s live shows (which featured a slurry of drugs, sex, and violence – truly GWARtesque) stand out. In one particular instance, their live show stood out a little too, shall we say, erect.

After being targeted for indecency by police in Charlotte, NC, frontman and overlord of Earth Oderus Urungus had his Cuttlefish of Cthulhu (or, in layman’s terms, giant rubber cock) confiscated. It is no small feat to say that one of the most infamous shock rock bands of all time were themselves shocked by the act, and they lashed out the best way possible: by making a concept album about the horrors of censorship. Entitled America Must Be Destroyed, GWAR’s third album featured songs that both railed against and lampooned the superficial political correctness so rampant in the ‘90s.

Though the album features some strong tracks that are still played by the band today, it’s mostly cornball tomfoolery that pokes fun at American society circa 1992. The band also supplemented their album with their Slave Pit-produced film Phallus in Wonderland. Documenting GWAR’s battle against both the Morality Squad and the crack-infused dinosaur Gor-Gor, Phallus in Wonderland is essentially a schlocky vision of what goes on at the band’s live shows. Does it hold up for modern audiences? The only way to know for sure is to let GWAR come unhinged on our nanobots.

• There’s a reason why most films don’t reveal the central plot point by having it read aloud by a skater punk from a newspaper soaked in fresh hobo vomit. = -7pts 
• Giving to the pedestrian you just ran over a crack pipe as recompense. = +4pts 
• Balsac achieves the couch fishing world record for distance by hauling in a skateboarder from the U.S. to Antarctica. = +3pts 
• Clad in their full regalia, GWAR jams the fuck out to “Crack in the Egg” wherein they literally hatch a Tyrannosaurus Rex through the power of crack cocaine. = +10pts 
• Slymenstra Hymen’s hairy pits. = 0pts (just an observation – we don’t judge!) 
• GWAR’s “acting” in 1992 was about as effective as George H. W. Bush’s re-election campaign. = -4pts (well, maybe we judge a little bit) 
• The nanobots aren’t sure how to describe the scene of events surrounding the trial against the Cuttlefish of Cthulhu. Sifting through the zeroes and ones we found the following: man dressed as nun, dick jokes, papier-mâché masks, and ejaculating puppets. = +4pts (sounds kinky) 
• Scored with terrible country music and even worse sound effects, Oderus Urungus forfeits his penis after losing a drunken brawl against steroid-infused Corporal Punishment. = -12pts 
• Grambo teaches us that fish do not achieve an erection when shown a pornographic magazine. = +6pts 
• Even though GWAR’s bat-helicopter-spaceship-thing is simultaneously powered by crack rocks and a portly guy on a treadmill, it still manages to crash. = -5pts 
• Corporal Punishment beats up terrorists. = +6pts (‘MERICA) 
• Catholic priest Father Bohab invites parents to send their young boys to a Bible internment camp where they will in no way be molested. = +3pts 
• Matricide by hot clothes iron. = -10pts 
• Gibby Haynes cameos as mustachioed commercial director Fritz Wang who attempts to motivate adults dressed as children by assuring them that the cereal they are about to eat tastes better than sucking off the family dog. = +7pts 
• The band act like a bunch of cool hepcats during a lounge/thrash song about abducting and violating children. Fun!= +8pts 
• The nanobots are once again malfunctioning while trying to assimilate what’s happening on the screen. The only thing discernable is “seizure-inducing gobbledygook.” = -15pts 
• So terrifying is the scene of Oderus murdering and deflowering a young man that not even Beefcake the Mighty can stand to watch. = +5pts 
• The Morality Squad assembles and reveals their nefarious plans of stopping GWAR and getting people hooked on prescription drugs… or something like that. It’s really hard to pay attention to anything that isn’t GWAR. = -6pts 
• A masturbating priest chases a guy in a pink leotard around a confessional booth, complete with laugh track and Curly Howard sound clips. = +4pts 
• GWAR treats their protesters with the same love and affection that they treat their fans. That is to say, they rip the protesters to pieces. = +9pts 
• Father Bohab’s disemboweling and violation with the cross don’t leave much to the imagination; the nanobots wished that they had. = -14pts 
• GWAR’s “The Road Behind” riffs on butt-rock ballads and has the band inexplicably fighting robots. = +2pts 
• After a crack binge, Oderus is awakened with a French kiss from his own Cuttlefish. A more repulsive reunion there could not have been. = -9pts 
• The showdown between GWAR and the Morality Squad is as grotesque as it is confounding. Let’s just say that lots of rubber suits were torn open. = -20pts 
• After announcing that Gor-Gor is destroying the city, the newscaster faithfully recreates Bud Dwyer’s final television appearance. = +6pts 
• The film ends with a kaiju-sized GWAR battling with Gor-Gor while they play the monster’s namesake song. = +8pts 
• From the wreckage of the Gor-Gor battle raises the Cuttlefish while “Ham on the Bone” plays out the credits. = +9pts

Total Score = -8pts
Available on: YouTube, a VHS tape lodged in the abscess of a tumescent space whale

Phallus in Wonderland had potential to be really entertaining. With still-prescient social commentary coupled with goofy costumes and even goofier gore, this could have been funny even without a budget more than a shoestring. Where it went wrong was an oversaturation of repugnant characters (GWAR not included), one-off gags, eye-gouging green screen, and, as the nanobots put it, “seizure-inducing gobbledygook.” For as much as we here at The Progressive Cinema Scorecard love GWAR, we would rather pretend that this blight on their otherwise glorious career doesn’t exist. If you want to see some actually funny GWAR shenanigans, check here and here.

Score Technician: TJ Geise

American Horror Story: Coven, Episode 12

After last week’s superficially shocking snoozefest broke the nanobots, it took the technician team countless hours to get them recalibrated and ready in time for this week’s episode of American Horror Story: Coven. Will we finally find out who the next Supreme is, or will Fiona just do us all a favor and murder the coven?

• Explaining important plot details with an old-timey silent film interlude. = +10pts
• After openly mocking Papa Legba by calling him Beetlejuice and Legabooboo, Fiona flips her wig when Queenie disrespects her. = -4pts (Hypocrite!)
• We know you’re blind, Cordelia, but put on some damn sunglasses for crying out loud! = -7pts
• Hell is simultaneously serving and waiting for fast food chicken. = +5pts (Seems legit)
• Papa Legba loves marshmallows as much as he does c-c-c-cocaine! = +3pts
• Hell is becoming the tour guide for your own house of horrors. = -4pts
• Despite begging for Death’s sweet relief for the majority of the season, Madame LaLaurie sure turns into a crybaby when the Grim Reaper’s scythe descends upon her. = -7pts
• As if the writers forgot what her powers are, Cordelia sees that the future of the Coven is a gruesome bloodbath. = +4pts (We sincerely hope so.)
• The Axe Man has the jazz fizzled out of his sax. = -4pts
• The death and return of a grody hobo. = -5pts
• We’d call the showdown between Madison and Misty a cat fight, but only Thundercats know how to brawl like Misty.  = +9pts
• Never jilt a fell demon from the hottest hells. = +11pts
• The Axe Man is given a send-off that will give most viewers (himself included) déjà vu. = -4pts
• Hell is being a racist tortured by a voodoo queen and a voodoo queen torturing a racist. Kids, think twice before you give a bunch of babies to otherworldly beings! = -7pts
• And like that, nearly every interesting character is hurled out of the runaway semi truck that this show has become. = -50pts

Total Score = -50 pts
Season Score = +101 pts

American Horror Story: Coven, at this point, can best be summed up as a show that has no idea what the hell it wanted to accomplish. It’s as if everyone involved in the creative process was just making things up as they went along with little concern for the endgame.

Was the Axe Man truly introduced to be the catalyst that brings the Coven together or was he just a mutation of a cool one-off character? Was beardy-weirdy murder husband always secretly working for a clandestine corporation hell-bent on killing all witches or did the writers just think that would be a cool thing to throw in toward the end?

The slapdash storytelling really worked for the first half of the season, but the bouillabaisse that is the show had one too many nonsensical ingredients thrown in to make anyone care about the core plot-point: the selection of the new Supreme. Which witch will it be, and more importantly, who’s going to care? Maybe Spalding will come down in his teddy with his doll-baby and sweep away the competition – at this point, it would not surprise us.

Score Technician: T. J. Geise

American Horror Story: Coven, Episode 11

Okay. Time to get serious. After two episodes of wheel spinning, AHS:C begins to move the pieces into place for its season finale. The question is: Does all that spinning get the show back on track, or have Ryan Murphy and Co. dropped the clutch and sent the entire show over the cliff as fast as that Australia guy from Grease 2 did, thus making all of us one giant sad Stephanie Zinone? This is why we leave it science.

• Production assistant reminds Ryan Murphy and Co. that Kathy Bates is the most terrifying thing in the show. His attempt to mitigate this fact by dressing her as Violet Beauregard only increase the horror factor to the scale of one Jason's hockey mask. = +7pts (For being as passionate about the characters on his show, as Wonka was for the safety of those kids in his factory.)
• Two episodes from the season finale and American Horror Story: Coven officially transforms into the American Hilarious Anecdote: Bitches of New Orleans. = -12pts
• Myrtle's effusive Ruth Reichle-like praise of Kathy Bates' poop bisque. = +5pts
• For the first time in Scorecard history a show/movie approaches its own event horizon: Kathy Bates clipper scene is so truly terrifying that any decent human being watching can only wish that every single one of these witches dies a horrible death based on their tolerance of her very existence. +/- Infinity (Nanobots must be rebooted.)

Total Score = +1pt

Season Score = +151pts

What happened? A season that started exceptionally well, with a refreshing amount of female (literal) empowerment, has devolved into a Guignolian exaggeration of the worst of Bravo programming, and has the effect of making one feel like they are trapped in the worst episodes of Real World/Housewives. The "men" that the women of this show are only tangentially scared of are a laughable flock, their complete incompetence an ignorant portrayal of the real fear men can have of women. As a result, one of the main conflicts of the show, the secret gender war, completely lacks stakes and serves as a red herring of the worst kind, since the only real story Ryan Murphy and Co. seem to be interested in telling is that "Bitches be crazy and can't stand each other. Put them in the same house and won't it be fun to watch them kill each other because all they care about is status/fashion/not getting old." The brutalization of many of the black characters is horrific not because of its cultural signifiers (that would require characters who embody that uniquely American trait), but because the show seems to revel in it and not critique it in any real way. 

And lastly, YOU BROKE THE MACHINES, RYAN MURPHY AND CO.! YOU BROKE THE MACHINES!! As a result our readers were robbed of scores related to references to Epcot Center, Diane van Furstenberg, knee pads, Benadryl, an Axe Man solo, and the epic phrase "Turds on that!"

Rather than say anymore, I'll leave it to Malachi to sum up our thoughts more concisely. 

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Flowers in the Attic

Lifetime, the network that brought you Mother, May I Sleep with Danger, has teamed up with VC Andrews, the woman who wrote the short story “I Slept with My Uncle on My Wedding Night” to bring us the tale of the burgeoning suffragette movement of the early 20th century. Strike that, the story of a bunch of kids locked in the attic of their rich grandma, who are later poisoned by their mother, and then the two older kids have sex. Yeah, that sounds more like it. Featuring Kiernan Shipka as Sally Draper Cathy and Heather Graham as Cathy’s evil mother Corrine, this totally true story, well kind of true, I mean it happened to this guy that VC Andrews met one time, Flowers in the Attic promises to deliver the great cinema we’ve come to expect from Lifetime.

• This family couldn’t appear more wholesome if they were figures out of a Norman Rockwell painting of The Brady Bunch. = -6pts 
• That necklace Dad brought home for Heather Graham just bought him a night of vanilla 1950s passion. = +4pts 
• Sally Draper pulls a Dawn from Buffy by turning her father’s job promotion into a “What About Me?” moment. = -10pts 
• Haven’t seen acting this poor since the Lifetime movie immediately preceding this one. = -14pts 
• Seriously, Heather Graham manages to deliver every one of her lines like she’s reading it for the first time from the back of a napkin. = -25pts 

• So, cops can just let themselves into your house? Had the 4th Amendment to the Constitution not been ratified yet in the ‘50s? = -4pts 
• That tender coming of age moment where your mother tells you that the bank is repossessing all your belongings to pay down your dead father’s debts, and how you’re going to have to move in with her estranged, millionaire parents. = +7pts (We think that’s something that all of us can relate to.) 
• Grandma considerately offers to raise the volume of her voice; inconsiderately offers a punch to the jaw. = -3pts 
• Lifetime encourages viewers to tweet using the hashtag “Bad Grandma.” #poorviewingdecisionsmadetonight was too unwieldy. = -9pts 
• Bad Grandma roughs up some toddlers. She knows you have to take out the toughest ones first in these situations. = +6pts 
• “God sees everything. God sees what evil you do behind my back” is how we are ending every one of our conversations from now on. = +15pts 
• Heather Graham’s character married her half uncle. Can someone please send us a picture of VC Andrews’ uncle? He must be smoking hot. = +12pts 
• “Sometimes love just happens… against your will.” In a film about eroticized child abuse and sibling incest, this line somehow manages to be the rapiest thing about the movie. = -9pts 
• Bad Grandma gets weirdly specific and asks Sally Draper, “Has your brother asked you to pose without your clothes on?” Grandma wants to hear every detail, slowly and from the beginning. = -7pts 
• Heather Graham’s father forgives her on the condition that her marriage produced no children. Suddenly, we have a vision of this film as a Weekend at Bernie’s-esque screwball comedy. = +10pts 
• Science alert: Cure for suffocation = a warm bath = -16pts 
• Bad Grandma sneaks into a locked room at night, bastes Sally Draper’s hair with tar, and slips away without alerting any of the four sleeping children in the room. What ashram did she go to for her ninja training? = +9pts 
• Sally Draper is forced to cut her hair and looks like Young Charlie from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. = +10pts

• If you're really so concerned with preventing your teenage grandchildren from banging each other, you should probably rethink your plan of keeping them confined to close quarters for years and forcing them into situations where one of them is shirtless. = -8pts 
• While scrounging for money in preparation for their escape, Sally Draper comes upon Heather Graham’s Picture Book of Monster Intercourse. = +11pts 
• Sally Draper and her brother engage in an incestuous relationship! Absolutely none of the press surrounding the movie prepared us for this shocking twist! = +18pts

• Spoiler Alert: Poisoned donuts look delicious. = +3pts 
• Bad grandma’s reign of terror ends when the kids simply shut the attic door. VC Andrews must have had some other stuff to do that day. = -13pts 

Total Score: -19pts
Available on: Reruns on Lifetime, under the pillow of every 12-year-old girl born in the ‘80s whose mom had a library of trashy books

Surprise, surprise, a movie whose major selling point is teen incest turns out to be way less fun than it sounds. There’s something indelible about Flowers in the Attic’s lurid premise, a gothic fairy tale written for the bodice-ripper set. In the hands of the right filmmaking team you could see this twisted tale of adolescent sexuality, religious mania, and seductive greed transformed into something approaching art. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, then, to pull Andrews’ wooden dialogue verbatim from the book. As for Heather Graham, don’t worry. We’ll always remember you as Annie Blackburn in Twin Peaks.

Score Technicians: Amanda Hemmerling and Joe Hemmerling

Hamlet

Depending upon your perspective, Michael Almereyda’s 2000 film adaptation of Hamlet is either a playful postmodern remixing of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, or a mewling abortion that deserves to be locked away in a lead-lined vault far below the surface of the earth. Relocating the play in modern-day New York, Almereyda casts Ethan Hawke as the titular character and disenfranchised heir to the vast fortune of the Denmark Corporation and Julia Stiles as his love interest/bohemian art student in hammer pants, Ophelia. The technology behind the PCS was crafted with the express purpose of answering life’s unanswerable question, so we look forward to determining, with indisputable scientific accuracy, whether Hawke’s Hamlet is a masterpiece or a master piece of shit.

• Shakespeare’s greatest soliloquies, reimagined as an angsty teen’s vlog. = -7pts 
• Business Facts We Learned from Hamlet: When the CEO of a major corporation dies, the executive position passes on to the next oldest male relation who marries his widow. = -2pts 
• But that’s okay because King Claudius is played by Special Agent Dale Cooper. = +15pts 
• AND BILL GODDAMN MURRAY IS POLONIUS!!! = +20pts 
• ‘90s fashion alert: Hamlet takes to the streets in his finest mourning stocking cap and Robert Smith eyeliner. = +4pts 
• Horatio arrives with a young Trixie from Deadwood to tell Hamlet about his father’s ghostly apparition. = +4pts 
• Thanks to Michael Almereyda, we now know that the late King Hamlet was only trying to tell Horatio and Marcella to drink more Pepsi One. = +3pts

• Julia Styles looks like a Frank Quietly drawing of a woman. = +12pts 
• Bill Murray totally Bill Murray’s his command to Laertes, “The time invites you; go!” = +5pts 
• Is Hamlet going to spend this entire movie in a fetal position and a stocking cap? = -9pts 
• Hamlet’s ghost dad demonstrates a “bad touch” on his son while explaining the circumstances of his murder. = -17pts 
• For the daughter of a top advisor to a king (CEO? We don’t even know anymore…), Ophelia sure lives in one shitty apartment building. = -4pts 
• Hamlet delivers Ophelia a love note that looks like it was folded up in the heel of his shoe, Marty Funkhouser style. = -3pts 
• Bill Murray shows up with balloons to cock block him, though. = +10pts 
• ‘90s fashion alert: Ophelia’s Hammer pants. = +18pts 
• Hamlet delivers the “To Be or Not to Be” soliloquy in the Action aisle in a Blockbuster. = +50pts 
• Rosencrantz’s high kick = +10pts 
• Shakespearean dialogue was made to be shouted over pounding club music. = +3pts 
• Hamlet watches Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet as the movie jackknifes over at the waist, climbs up its own ass, and back out its mouth. = +15pts 
• In order to probe Hamlet’s sudden, apparent madness, Ophelia returns his old correspondences, all of which she keeps in her Smashing Pumpkins boxed set. = +3pts 
• And suddenly, it dawns on us—the moodiness, the solipsistic introspection, the erratic behavior in his romantic relationships—Hamlet is basically just a 16th century version of Troy Dyer, making Ethan Hawke perhaps the single most inspired casting choice in all recorded history. = +37pts 
• ‘90s tech alert: Hamlet’s “Get Thee to a Nunnery” speech delivered via answering machine. = +5pts 
• ‘90s fashion alert: Ophelia’s cornrows. = +6pts 
• Instead of a play within a play, Hamlet subjects his friends and family to a douchey video art project. = -11pts 
• Upon viewing this reimagined version of The Mousetrap, Special Agent Dale Cooper staggers to his feet and flees the auditorium. Although, it’s hard to say whether this is an admission of guilt or if he just couldn’t feign anymore interest in his stepson’s instillation. = +6pts (He should have just said that you had to return some video tapes. That always works for us.) 
• Hamlet’s got a gun. = +25pts 
• Hamlet interrupts his sexually charged scene with his mother long enough to shoot Bill Murray in the face. = -10pts 
• ‘90s tech/fashion alert: Ophelia brings back the Hammer pants and a fistful of Polaroids for her big scene. = +18pts 
• ‘90s tech alert: Hamlet-murder rap session between Special Agent Dale Cooper and Laertes is interrupted by a fax. = +2pts 
• In place of his soliloquy, the gravedigger sings a few bars of “All Along the Watchtower.” = -4pts 
• Showing up to your ex-girlfriend’s funeral and challenging her brother to a grief-off. = -10pts 
• When you were the one who murdered their father and drove her to suicide in the first place. = -19pts 
• Also does HAMLET really have any room to lecture anyone about what constitutes an appropriate display of grief? = -6pts 
• Hamlet’s ghost dad watching Horatio’s girlfriend while she sleeps. = -3pts 
• Going through all the trouble of staging a fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes, only to finish it by having Laertes pull a gun and shoot Hamlet in the gut. = +14pts 
• In keeping with all good Shakespeare tragedies, the play ends with a pile of bodies big enough to rival the Breaking Bad finale. = +20pts 
• Announcing Fortinbras’s ascension to the throne of Denmark via newscast. = +5pts

Total Score = +205pts
Available on: Netflix streaming

Well, the nanobots can’t lie, folks. Hamlet 2000 is officially a good movie. However you feel about Almereyda and Hawke’s interpretation of the central character, you can’t deny that it’s a reading that makes sense from at least a surface-level interpretation of the play. Yet even more importantly, it’s the film’s preoccupation with our own perception of Hamlet—with the various interpretations of the play over the centuries in film, music, and other media—that makes this such giddily enjoyable deconstruction.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

American Horror Story: Coven, Episode 10

Holidays are over. Your favorite shows are back on. Let's get down to it.

• Zoe’s relegation from main player to background character is made complete when her only role in the episode was to point out the obvious. = +4pts 
• Ebony and Ivory, destroying witch-hunters in perfect harmony. = +3pts 
• Voodoo deity Papa Negba’s love of cocaine and innocent souls makes him the Dr. Rockso of voodoo deities. = +7pts (He does cocaine!) 
• When stealing a baby to appease your voodoo master, why blend into the shadows to sneak in and out undetected when you can instead Xena trill the security team into killing themselves? = -12pts 
• Fiona wins a bet against Stevie Nicks that Misty Day will pass out upon meeting her idol in person. = +4pts 
• Stevie Nicks gives an unconvincing performance as herself by blandly reading her lines and butchering one of her own songs. = -14pts 
• It’s hard to tell if Nan really can control minds, as we’re almost certain that Madison puts her cigarettes out with her vag regardless of the circumstances. = +3pts 
• Jazz funeral! = +10pts 
• Bringing a dead man back to life before his jazz funeral is even out of earshot. = -5pts (Did they just expect the guy to say to his family, “lol j/k!” and then everything would be fine?) 
• While it’s unclear if Madison surpassed Fiona for the title of Supreme, she definitely surpassed her for the title of Supremely Unlikeable. = -4pts 
• Making good on her promise to only do good things, Nan forces sociopathic harp-polisher next door to chug bleach. = +6pts 
• There’s no better background music than the Theremin to accompany a nervous breakdown. = +11pts 
• When a baby-stealing cocaine devil won’t strike an infernal deal with you, you’re fucked. = +4pts 
• Baron Samedi… we’re sorry, Papa Legba… gives Nan a new home. At least her departure was on-screen! = -3pts (Sorry, Precious.) 
• So does Stevie Nicks just live there in the coven now? = -9pts

Total Score = +10pts
Season Score = +151pts

The return of American Horror Story: Coven was fun, but it definitely left a lot of loose ends. The most striking was the lack of detail regarding Madame Lalaurie’s fate. Considering that her headless-yet-animated body was just chilling out in the back room of a homicide scene, there should have been some mention of how Angela Bassett disposed of it. Either that or we’re just left to believe that the cops didn’t think twice about it. Seems legit.

This season has yo-yoed between being a serious drama to a being a spectacle as amazingly ludicrous as Elvis riding a unicorn. With the end of the arc only a handful of episodes away, it’s hard not to be champing at the bit to find out what happens next. While we’re not sure if nanobots are capable of champing, the technicians definitely can’t wait!

Score Technician: T. J. Geise

MirrorMask

What do you get when you combine Neil Gaiman, a writer known for his dark urban fantasy imagery and quirky sense of humor, Dave McKean, a long-time Gaiman collaborator known for his beautifully creepy illustrations, and Jim Henson Pictures, a studio owned by a company famous for its innovations in puppetry? MirrorMask! Does this film effectively utilize the talents and resources of these creators?  This very important Scorecard holds the answers.

• A film written by Neil Gaiman, designed by Dave McKean, and produced by Jim Henson Pictures? Hello high expectations! = +15pts
• Helena operates her sock puppets with her feet, the way sock puppets were always meant to be operated. = +10pts
• Wait, it’s another story about a person with a strange, potentially exciting life who just wants to be normal? DAMN YOU, INTERESTING LIFE! = -5pts
• Hello, obvious foreshadowing. We wonder if something is going to happen to Helena’s mom after Helena wishes harm upon her. = -5pts
• A fake-looking soundstage. = -4pts (For setting the tone for the film’s visuals.)
• MirrorMask was originally conceived as a Labyrinth knock-off, so there must be contact juggling! = -3pts
• Pingo the Clown is absolutely committed to his art, never dropping his communication-by-whistling act even when backstage and discussing important matters with his boss. The world needs more professionals like him.= +6pts
• What is this circus’ target demographic? The audience is full of smiling kids, and yet the performers’ costumes wouldn’t look out of place in a Jan Švankmajer film. = +8pts (For the performers' willingness to alienate every demographic in pursuit of their art.)
• Look circus folk, while we admire commitment, when a member of your troupe collapses, it’s ok to cancel the performance. The show needn’t always go on, proverbs be damned. = -4pts
• Helena’s apartment building looks like it barely survived a nuclear war in Eastern Europe. Remind us again why Helena wants to live in the real world? = +3pts (For the effective juxtaposition of the kooky circus world and the drab, mundane, real world.)
• The fact that Helena is comfortable giving her mother a get well card with such an ugly drawing of her does more than words ever could to tell us how strong their relationship is. Truly, this is an example of “show, don’t tell” at its best. = +6pts
• Wait, now Pingo the Clown decides to communicate through words? What happened to your devotion, man? You used to be about the art! = -7pts
• Oh no, if the circus doesn’t get back up and running soon the bank will…zzzz… = -5pts
• Hey, a crazy-ass dream sequence that makes no sense, but is visually interesting. It’s been too long since we’ve had some off-the-wall visuals, and frankly, it’s about time. This real world BS is boring. = +4pts
• Helena, when a creepy stranger wearing a mask in the middle of the night asks for your name, you might want to be cautious about giving it out. Are you not familiar with a little concept called “stranger danger”? = -5pts
• Hey, what’s that creeping darkness in the background—HOLY SHIT IT ATE THE VIOLINIST!  = +3pts
• Finally, we enter the kooky other world, and not a moment too soon. No one comes to a Jim Henson production for bank woes and health scares. = +8pts
• Wait, is this world… greenscreened?! Why would they do this? It’s Jim Henson Productions! We demand creepy puppets and cheesy sets. = -15pts
• Ok, fine. Those sphinx designs with the not-quite-human faces are creepy. But imagine if they were creepy puppets! = +4pts
• Bad sphinxes! Books, much like fish, are friends, not food. = -4pts
• Shadows are not the opposite of light, MirrorMask. It’s like you don’t even care about the laws of physics, by which all films are bound. = -5pts
• Books in this world will literally take you places. Or a place…as they only go to the library. = +2pts
• Suddenly, Helena is all-too-eager to prove her juggling skills to a strange man in need of a juggler, forgetting her earlier motivation of wanting to escape the circus life. = -4pts
• Dave McKean is a great artist, and the background really is beautiful, in a deranged sort of way. It’s just too bad that Helena and Valentine are so poorly digitally integrated into it. -7pts
• We understand that a half of a brick and a chicken aren’t exactly high on the list of “things that are likely charms,” but if you don’t know what the charm looks like, maybe you should be a bit more hesitant before ruling them out, Mr. Majordomo. = -4pts
• So far, this chicken seems like the most logical being in the other world. Maybe instead of wasting time trying to wake the queen, the City of Light should start listening to the chicken. = +5pts
• Withholding ice cream as a method of police interrogation.= +9pts
• We’re starting to think that no one here, not even Gaiman, knows what the charm’s role or purpose is. = -6pts
• Crossed eyes are pretty unsettling, and it’s about time someone called them out as such. +4pts
• Helena not getting suckered in by cool-sounding metaphors that are ultimately meaningless. = +4pts
• Wait, the librarian doesn’t know what the origin story means either?  Oh, this is bad… = -8pts
• Why is this film focusing on a quest narrative when it keeps giving us things off to the side that seem so much more interesting?  Like, who are those creepy red-cloaked library assistants with the Eyes Wide Shut masks?  Let’s learn more about them! = -7pts
• We need more rich people to be like Valentine’s vision of rich people. Eccentricity is fun!  Economy-destroying greed is not. = +2pts (For whimsy!)
• Helena not being intimidated by what some might see as “the right answer to a riddle.” =  +10pts (For not letting the rules of logic keep you down.)
• The visible edge of the greenscreen surrounding Helena is surely just a weird side effect of being a human in this other world. = -6pts
• If masks are faces, and people don’t or can’t take masks off, why would there be a mask shop?  = -10pts
• This elderly mask shop woman lives with numerous stray, feral sphinxes, and doesn’t give a second thought to the fact that they could tear her to shreds, thus making her the biggest badass in the film. = +10pts for badassery, -6pts for her not being the lead character, net +4pts
• Elderly mask shop woman is so badass, she was able to obtain the film’s soundtrack. Somewhere, she’s hiding a portal to our world, and we must fear her impending arrival. = +15pts
• Another deliverer of exposition admits to being full of shit. If you won’t take your plot seriously MirrorMask, why should we? = -8pts
• For the past few minutes, the film has been building up an attack by the sphinxes and then… Helena and Valentine just leave. Presumably to find the film’s stakes.  = -7pts
• Oh good, the sphinxes are back… only to hiss and look threatening without actually doing anything. = -5pts
• Helena is told to get higher, and does not interpret this as a directive to toke up. We don’t know about her, but a little weed would certainly help us get through this.= -4.20pts
• If you are a gorilla-bird thing and don’t go by the name Bob, you deserve to be smacked. = +3pts
• Theme of the moment: how not to lose things. = -8pts
• That is one snazzy hat! Did Valentine have a sudden urge to go shopping in the forbidden Dark Kingdom? = +10pts (For snazziness.)
• For the creepiest rendition of The Carpenters’ “Close To You” we’ve ever experienced. = +10pts 
• The film has just confirmed that it has no idea what the MirrorMask is for, to whom it belongs, or where it’s supposed to be located. We might care more if this were more of a surprise. = -4pts
• Valentine snaps Helena out of her trance by getting her to juggle= +5pts
• Helena pulling the MirrorMask from out of nowhere after making a wild guess as to its location. =  +10pts (For knowing that we want this movie to end soon.)
• Time-traveling waiter humor. = +5pts
• The Dark Queen is just inventing new powers at this point. The only power she lacks is the power to harm or impede our protagonists. = -8pts
• If nothing else, this film gives us the idea to commission Elon Musk to build us an electric  flying tower. = +12pts
• Father: “It’s going to be fine.”  Onscreen text: “And they were.”  Audience: “But do we care?”  Final nanobot calculation: “No you won’t.” = -5pts

Total Score = -19.8pts

Available on: DVD, Blu-Ray, Amazon Instant

It’s very clear that some executive somewhere saw the high DVD sales of Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, and concluded that as long as this film had kooky visuals, it’d sell. Well, they succeeded at creating some interesting images, but that’s about it. Gaiman phoned in the story, evident in the fact that not even the characters gave much thought to the plot. McKean’s designs were nice, but poorly executed. Worst of all, this movie is boooring. Which, when you factor in the fact that the film has man-eating sphinxes, Carpenters-singing dolls that wouldn’t be out of place at Sid’s house in Toy Story, and a flying tower, that’s saying a lot.

Score Technician: Andrew Daar

Blade

In 1973, Blade was created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Gene Colan for Marvel Comics as a supporting character in The Tomb of Dracula. He earned his first solo story in 1974. Since then, the character has appeared in comics, film, television, anime, video games, as action figures, and is still cosplayed at Comic Cons everywhere. UGO Networks placed Blade as one of the top heroes of entertainment noting that "Blade has to get props for being the most obscure Marvel character to ever get a film deal.” Will this 1998 film live up to its Blade predecessors? Will Wesley Snipes be able to breathe life into this iconic character? The Nanobots are ready to answer these and other fine questions as we look at the first of the three-film series, Blade.

• We begin with a flashback to the not-so-auspicious birth of our hero. Who’s a pwecious wittle vampire-human hybrid? You are! Squeeeeeeeeeee!= +15pts. 
• Present day and Traci Lords is taking us to a sexy, secret rave mysteriously hidden behind a meat packing plant.= +40pts. (This is gonna be cool, right?) 
• …which turns into a scary vampire blood-rave. = -15pts. (Not cool! Not cool!) 
• …which turns into an even scarier vampire blood-rave massacre. = +10pts. (Back to cool again!) 
• Cops show up and break up the vampire blood-rave massacre because…wait, who called them? “911. What is your emergency?” “Oh my Blood God, it’s the Daywalker! He’s got garlic and UV light and this terrifying boomerang blade-thing. Hurry!”= -14pts. 

• You gotta love a hero that gives himself the “Yes!” fist pump after he makes a great shot.= +7pts. 
• The cops that break up the vampire blood-rave massacre must be the normal first responders and not on the vampire payroll, because they end up taking a charred and crispy Donal Logue to the Morgue where he can mix it up with regular folks.= -8pts. 
• Blade shows up at the hospital to finish off Donal Logue even though he totally could have done that at the rave and saved himself the trouble of finding another parking space.= -6pts. 
• Police officers shoot Blade in the chest 4 times and all they get for their trouble is, “Motherfucker, are you out your damn mind?” Blade, he’s one bad mother… “Shut your mouth!” I’m just talkin’ ‘bout Blade!= +16pts. 
• Donal Logue bites a doctor (a hematologist, as luck would have it!) Blade attempts to carry her to safety and the police still shoot at them! Steve Guttenberg was a better cop. = -9pts. 
• The Dodge Charger – proudly serving Hollywood’s leading men since 1968.= +25pts. 
• Kris Kristofferson plays Blade’s human vampire-hunting sidekick, Whistler. Art-history buffs can make up their own joke about his mother. = score this one yourself based on how clever you think your joke was. 
• Photos of the vampire blood-rave massacre end up in the hands of some sort of vampire Board of Directors. Udo Kier is The Chairman, the American is Dino, and Deacon Frost is totally Peter Lawford.= +12pts 
• Blade: dabbler in Buddhism, Ikebana, meditation, smelting, heavy weapons and weird, anti-eating-people serums.= +27pts. 
• The vampire archives are located underneath a Japanese social club complete with female entertainers on stage dressed as school girls. We kinda prefer the meat packing plant.= -18pts. 
• Pearl, the Jabba the Hutt of the Underdark. Oh, this? It’s just baby fat. Because she eats babies.= +15pts.

• This room contains the ancient pages of The Book of Erebus, the entire vampire history, suspended in panes of glass. Perfect place for a Kung Fu fight!= +20pts. 
• All it takes to keep a vampire from exploding in the sun is sunblock? All these years, vampires have been a bunch of bitchy little girls.= -5pts. 
• The people of Los Angeles are hard. Deacon Frost throws a little girl in front of a bus and the bus doesn’t even try to avoid her. Hell, it doesn’t even slow down after the world’s burliest ninja leaps in front of said bus and hurls the kid out of the way. I guess in L.A., this is just Tuesday.= -12pts. 
• Something very, very bad happens to Whistler. Kinda ashamed of yourself for that joke you made about his mother earlier, aren’t you? = No Score; you just sit and think about what you did.
• This room contains nothing but water features and glass. Since we already did a Kung Fu fight, how about a gunfight?= +20pts. 
• Our friend, the hematologist, develops a new serum that turns vampires into exploding stuffed peppers, only gooey-er . Take that, suckheads!= +30pts. 

• Blade meets his mom for the first time. We haven’t been this uncomfortable watching a family gathering since we saw A Charlie Sheen Christmas on Lifetime.= -20pts. 
• Hey, Deacon, come here for a sec. Look, if vampires are at the top of the food chain and you raise La Magra, The Blood God, who will turn all the living into the undead, what are you gonna eat, bro? I’m just trying to help you out here. = -25pts. 
• You know you are participating in a seriously fucked-up ritual when your skeleton frees itself from your body. Damn. = +19pts. 
• The hematologist develops a potential cure for Blade! He will no longer thirst for human blood, but he will also lose his vampire strength and ability to regenerate. Um, maybe later. These vampire minions aren’t going to kill themselves.= +25pts. 
• Blade, facing no other choice and in a severely weakened state, partakes of human blood, making him go into a blood-rage. Why on Earth would all the vampire minions throw themselves at him just to get kicked in the nuts so hard they go through a wall?= +30pts. 

• During the course of this film, Donal Logue is burned alive, has his right hand amputated, takes a 10 story fall into an ambulance, regrows all his skin and his hand only to take a katana in the leg, a commuter train in the face and to have his right hand amputated again. He is finally spectacularly decapitated. Donal Logue: Undead Pinata.= +32pts. 
• Thanks to the vampire-killing serum, La Magra is defeated in a squishy, disgusting bloodsplosion. As Blade says, “Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill.” Right into Blade’s fist.= +40pts. 
• Hey, Doc, you keep your cure. I feel a sequel coming on!= +120pts.

Total Score = +371 pts (+/- your Whistler score)
Available on: Netflix, The Blade Trilogy DVD box set, and The Blade Collection (Blu-ray)

15 years after this film’s release, Blade is still gettin’ it done. Fun to watch and a showpiece of exemplary fight choreography, the Nanobots are fully satisfied by this action movie experience. Is the plot a little thin? Sure, but if you are looking for a realistic comic book action movie, we are not sure Hollywood, or anyone else for that matter, can help you.

Score Technician: Stacey Hanlon